


Moral Panic

by westwoodandridingcrops



Series: Get Your Fill (Tumblr Prompt Fills) [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Additional Warnings Apply, Blood, Drug Use Mentioned, Greaser Sherlock, Greasers, M/M, Mod Jim, Uni!lock, University AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-12
Updated: 2015-07-12
Packaged: 2018-04-08 21:37:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4321653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/westwoodandridingcrops/pseuds/westwoodandridingcrops
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the construction of images, class differences, societal expectations, and how to go about ignoring all of these. Or, how Sherlock cured his summertime blues in ‘64.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Moral Panic

**Author's Note:**

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It was too hot for Sherlock’s leather jacket but the occasional chill made him keep it on. No one had warned him how miserably hot it could be in a lecture hall at Cambridge mid-May. Sweat was collecting at his nape, but he wasn’t sure if that was from the heat or the heroin. Professor Barrow had deigned to come to class in order to brief them (briefly) on the nature and content of their final examination. Sherlock had come in late, his motorcycle boots treading noisily as he slid into his semi-usual (when he could be arsed to come at all) seat at the back of the class. Finally, the old goat seemed done with them. Sherlock sighed before standing, ready to make a quick exit.

 

“Holmes,” a clear voice rang from the front. “A word.” _Fuck all._ He watched the rest of the class shuffle out, his hope of an easy escape going with them. He turned his face back to the lectern and spied James Moriarty leaned casually against the front desk.

 

“With some urgency, please. I haven’t all day to wait on you,” he drawled.

 

While Sherlock had long ago decided that all of that shite Mycroft had spouted about ‘duty’ and ‘responsibility’ and ‘potential’ was just that--shite--Moriarty had been some sort of wunderkind, the darling of the Cambridge physics department. Sherlock had heard that the Americans (and perhaps even the Soviets) had tried to warm him to their part of a decidedly cold war. Where Sherlock had grown his hair, slicked it back, and rebuilt his father’s Triumph in the garage while Elvis and Eddie Cochran sounded from the radio, James Moriarty had put on a fitted suit, climbed on a _Vespa_ , and listened to the discordant hammerings and blarings of Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane.  

 

He didn’t move a muscle to approach the front of the hall and he didn’t bother raising his gaze to the professor’s assistant, choosing instead to stare at his desk petulantly. He’d heard this speech before, would hear it again, and would be as unaffected by it as he was the first twenty times Mycroft had lectured him.

           

Moriarty sighed, “Barrow has asked me to speak to you about your marks, your wasted mind.” There was a pause, followed by another sigh. “I went here with your brother, you know...” Ah, there it was, the predictable ‘I know your brother, don’t you want to be like him?’ or ‘won’t he be disappointed’ speech. “He was an arsehole,” Moriarty continued. Sherlock’s head snapped up at the surprising end of the sentence. “And, judging by your _fantastic_ manners, I certainly see the family resemblance.”

 

_Perhaps not an immediately predictable tack to take, but one with a predictable end. Obvious. Trite._ “Yes. Now that you draw a comparison between me and my brother, I’m inspired to have better manners and do well in a course he wouldn’t have taken. That’s that, then.” He smiled briefly and utterly falsely before rapping out a quick rhythm on the desk as a means of punctuating the conversation and making to go.

 

Moriarty cracked a withering smile and he chuckled softly. “Well, it’d hardly be the first time you’d followed along in someone else’s footsteps, now would it?”  

 

At that, Sherlock stopped in his seat but quickly recovered the perpetual, vaguely condescending smirk he always wore these days. He looked down as if considering his own attire in response to what Moriarty had implied, but it was all for show. He followed his own appraisal by then pointedly taking in Moriarty with a long look starting from his shoes, continuing along the suit that had plainly not been made for him and ending in his neatly-coiffed hair. Meeting his eyes at last, he wordlessly arched an eyebrow. “Square,” he diagnosed. _And not a terribly good one at that._

 

“Oh, cut the shite. Do you have any idea how ridiculous that sounds out of your Harrow boy, silver-spooned mouth?” Jim asked, finally moving from his position against the desk and stalking forward. “The fact that you’re spending your time trying to figure out whether my suit and shoes are up to snuff for _my crowd_ rather destroys your oh-so-carefully crafted carelessness, no?”

 

Well, he _had_ always felt a little ridiculous using the slang outside of transport cafes, but before Moriarty, Sherlock easily shrugged off the accusation. “Spending time? No. It isn’t the shoes so much, except that you take care of them too well for them to have the scuff marks that they do, so they weren’t yours to begin with. It isn’t even the suit which fits you well, but not well enough to have been made for you. It’s not the fact that you’re thinner than you were when you first saw the suit because you skipped a few meals to be able to afford it at all. It’s the fact that you’re shuffling papers. As organized as you are, it’s plainly more convenient to buy a bag, but you haven’t been able to find a cheap one that looks good enough yet. So, it’s all armfuls of papers for now. I didn’t _spend_ any time and it didn’t take any _care,_ but it does make your accusation seem….projected? In light of how carefully you construct yourself.”

 

Sherlock expected Jim to grow angry, get offended, tell him to get fucked, and most importantly leave him be, as most people did in response to his deductions. Certainly, he didn’t expect him to snicker and clap his hands together. Still, there was something near maniacal in his eyes, a glint of something near feral. “Oh, very _good_ , Sherlock. How very, very clever. Awfully clever of you. You neglect a crucial difference, however. Yeah, you got me. I fake it. I fake it all.” Though the reaction was unexpected, and the praise clearly sarcastic, Sherlock couldn’t help but nod once to himself at the confirmation of what he’d observed. He might have launched back another rejoinder, but he was interrupted. “But my ruse takes me somewhere, all yours does is prevent you from getting anyplace at all. Good day, Holmes.”

 

With that, Moriarty was gone, leaving Sherlock there in his wake. His venomous barb, having nowhere else to go in the now empty space, twisting his studied look of condescension into a sneer instead.

 

____

 

In the spring of 1964, after Sherlock had decided that applied mathematics and theoretical physics had fuck-all to do with anything he was interested in, a series of scuffles took place in the towns surrounding the university. There wasn’t a choice at all, if one was young, one had to choose an allegiance: you were either a rocker or a mod. Hammers were thrown, Vespas were tossed into local bodies of water, fishhooks were sewn into leather jackets and the real squares, older people who did not care about either group, viewed both with suspicion.  

 

That spring, Sherlock was leaned against the Triumph, having a cigarette outside of the cafe and watching disinterestedly as two leather-clad mates horseplayed ad nauseam. He debated with himself as he watched them roughhouse. _Unusually handsy,_ but that was inconclusive. _Already counterculture to begin with,_ that said ‘less tied to social norms.’ _Freely affectionate in public,_ but that implied the idea of being above suspicion. Of course, after that ‘Leather’ movie, rockers as a whole were not above suspicion. He searched for the clincher to sway him one way or the other, more as an exercise than out of real interest. It occurred to him that Mycroft would certainly have found it by now and would have used the time remaining to condescendingly explain his reasoning, so he dropped his gaze from them and desisted from the enterprise entirely.

 

Almost as soon as he decided to drop the matter, though, the pair stopped abruptly and all three of them--Sherlock and the (latently homosexual? blatantly homosexual? naively heterosexual?) pair of rockers-- turned their heads at the sound of an approaching engine. Not that the growl of an engine was out of place in the area, rather, it was the unmistakable sound of the exact wrong sort of vehicle to have at this particular establishment.      

 

He watched as the helmet came off and revealed Barrow’s assistant, still perfectly coiffed and smartly dressed as he’d been the day he’d swept out of the lecture hall. What was he doing here? This was hardly _his_ side of town. Moriarty seemed nonchalant as he made his way to the counter and ordered his food. The two other rockers seemed less occupied with themselves and more with their perceived interloper. All the while, Sherlock watched silently.

 

“Bit out of your way, wouldn’t you say? Nice boy like you. Are you lost, sissy?” They approached the small table Moriarty was seated at and leaned over, crowding him.

 

Moriarty chuckled and continued munching his chips. He licked the vinegar and salt from his thumb before speaking. His voice was lower than it ever had been in class, more Dublin drawl.

“Well, _sweetheart_ , I’d say that is a rather interesting choice of wording coming from you,” he responded looking between the two men who were quickly becoming more and more red-faced.

 

“You fuckin’ tosser, we’ll show you ‘sissy,’” the blond one sputtered. In a moment, the table was flipped, Moriarty's dinner with it. The brown-haired one made a move to grab at Moriarty, but, in a flash, it seemed the slippery man was out of his grasp. The blond busied himself with slashing the Vespa’s tires, while the brunet focused on corralling Moriarty. Sherlock watched the blond cut into the rubber, but for the second time today both his and the blond’s head swiveled, now as a piercing scream was loosed. Sherlock’s ability to remain the cool and detached spectator evaporated with the scream. The locals had long since lost their patience with the feud between mods and rockers and regardless of how uninvolved he’d been in the fight, he had no desire to call Mycroft from a cell again. He tossed the cigarette and swung his leg over the seat of his bike, preparing to make his exit, but found that his instinct to flee was momentarily outweighed by his desire to see what Moriarty would do next.

 

The brunet was on his knees now, a bright red gash across his face. Jim pocketed the butterfly knife and ran his thumb over his bottom lip as he surveyed the scene. The blond seemed momentarily paralyzed, torn between launching himself at Moriarty and going to his friend’s aid.

 

“Holmes.”  Moriarty’s voice broke the shock that hung in Sherlock’s mind. Men like James Moriarty didn’t have knives. They certainly didn’t know how to use them with the brutal efficiency necessary to reduce a man’s face to ribbon. “Do make yourself useful for once. It seems I need a ride.”

 

____  


Sherlock killed the engine as he eased the bike into the alley beside his flat. It wasn’t a bad spot. Mycroft had annoyingly insisted that he live decidedly on the safe part of town, and that meant constant sidelong looks from Cambridge’s local residents and heads shaking in disappointment. It also meant a flat that hardly matched with his persona.

 

“Why are we here?” Jim asked with just a tinge of slyness as they stood at the heavy wooden door.

 

Sherlock shrugged. “Reflex, I guess,” and he said nothing more, even as he unlocked the entrance and went about making himself at home.  

 

“My, my, and the image certainly does drop at the door stop,” Jim sneered, his hand drifting over the fine wood of the sitting room furniture for emphasis.

 

“Do you care to explain what just happened?” Sherlock asked as a non-sequitur.

 

Jim threw himself into one of the chairs, sprawled out to make himself home. His collar was undone, his hair rumpled from his earlier efforts. There were minute drops of blood staining the crisp white of his shirt. All pretense seemed to melt away from him, and the person left after the Mod shell was chipped away was a darker, less predictable one. _Danger_ , Sherlock’s amygdala supplied unhelpfully. “What do you think just happened, _Sherlock_?” He asked, emphasizing the use of his pupil’s first name.

 

“I think you’re not the person you project at school. I don’t think that person exists,” Sherlock decided, amending the impression he’d formed about Moriarty in the lecture hall.

 

Moriarty considered for a moment, “I suppose you’re right. It’s a clever one, I have to admit. I’m rather proud of it.”

 

His interest piqued in forming a newer and more accurate definition of this man, he pulled a chair before him and sat, his eyes involuntarily narrowed as he reconsidered the evidence and threw out his first revised theory. “Social climber? But then, why go to that part of town in the first place? Could ruin the image if, say, a student saw you.”

 

“Most of them are already gone for the summer,” Jim explained. “And besides, they’ve the best chips in town,” he added flippantly.

 

Sherlock rolled his eyes at the comment but couldn’t help the flash of amusement it produced in him. He’d been the dismissive one on the other end of this sort of conversation far too often to not catch himself almost smirking at it. That was part of the reason why Sherlock wasn’t away for the summer like the rest. “But then, you’re a scholarship student attempting to outdo everyone else in order to compensate for a rough upbringing. The obvious sense of superiority comes from being able to move in very different spheres. Ultimately, predictable.”  

           

But rather than meeting with easy confirmation of what he off-handedly assumed, Jim laughed at him. . Sherlock had missed something, he realized as fought to not show how affronted he was. It wasn’t a chuckle like before, either, Moriarty laughed at him outright.  “You still don’t get it. That’s not the half of it, Sherlock Holmes.” Moriarty stood up, smoothing out his rumpled clothes and straightening his jacket. “But don’t worry. You’ll see soon enough. Or, maybe you won’t. That’s more the pity, I think. ”  He seemed to trail off as he looked around Sherlock’s flat before bringing his attention back to Sherlock with undisguised focus, “It’s not. Predictable, that is. A rich boy trying to divert attention from his big brother by acting out. _That’s_ predictable.”

 

He leaned back and crossed his arms at the accusation, now his focus, rather than the non-sequitur which he neatly tucked away for further inquiry later. “You think I want attention. You mistake me, the opposite is rather true.”

 

“Oh, I don’t think so. I’d say you do want attention. Is that also why you use?” He rolled his eyes at Sherlock’s shock. “Of course, the jacket’s convenient, isn’t it? Come on.” Moriarty nodded faintly in the direction of Sherlock’s sleeve. “Show me.”

 

Perhaps it was the first time someone brought his ‘extracurriculars’ without mentioning how it would upset Mummy, or more likely, the same sort of curiosity that had made him see the fight to the end impelled him to discover what would happen if he _did_ show Moriarty his arm. Regardless, after a moment’s consideration, he stood up and pulled the jacket off, tossing it onto the chair behind him but never looking away from Moriarty’s piercingly dark eyes. He was left in the characteristic tight white t-shirt, and he only looked away, once he’d extended his arm for inspection.  

 

“Sort of strange.” Jim said, taking hold of Sherlock’s wrist and examining the scars on Sherlock’s arm. “Your lot really doesn’t get on with that sort of thing.”

 

Sherlock opened his mouth to reply, but a waved hand cut him off. “This is exactly what I’m talking about.” Moriarty stepped even closer, invading. He held Sherlock’s wrist a touch more firmly, while his fingertips brushed the marks and scabs softly, almost tenderly. “You’re wasting _everything_ \--your potential, your brain, your privilege, and for what, for Christ’s sake? It’s not even real danger. You stood there today like a statue. Yeah, sure you could overdose, but I’ve seen your marks, you don’t do as badly in chemistry as you do in everything else. it’s not _real_ danger. Not really.”

 

Moriarty looked up from his arm to ask, “Aren’t you bored, Sherlock?”

 

Sherlock furrowed his brow. He was still an outsider among a group of outsiders, he did not run with other rockers, or with anyone at all, and did not follow even highly-held tenets of the culture. But he did enjoy driving at utterly insane speeds and ever pushed his preferred dose further and further closer to what might eventually end him altogether. He hadn’t been wrong when he corrected Moriarty, it wasn’t anything so trite as to make his parents pay attention to him, or to distinguish himself from his straitlaced brother. It was the perpetually unsatisfied search for a thrill to stand out from the tedium of existence. He _was_ bored, in a way he thought no one else seemed to comprehend and he could never alleviate. Strangely, the question seemed to have an effect on Moriarty as well. Instead of the air of smugness he normally projected, for a brief second, there was something almost like sympathy in Moriarty’s eyes before they’d both blinked and Moriarty returned his attention to the thin bruises and scars on Sherlock’s arms.

 

“You didn’t seem to think you were in danger earlier. What is real danger, then?” Sherlock asked, his voice barely above a rumble due to the proximity in which they found themselves.

 

Moriarty looked up from Sherlock’s arm again, this time grinning, white teeth flashing in the semi-dark space. “Now you’re starting to ask the right questions. I could certainly show you something more dangerous than a bit of heroin and an engine.”

 

“Unless I’m misunderstanding your...’offer,’ Moriarty, there doesn’t seem to be anything dangerous about that. It’s the most common thing in the world, as I understand it.,” he said, drawing his arm back, slowly.   

 

“‘As you understand it?’” Jim asked lightly, moving closer to pursue him. Moriarty reached forward and plucked at the cotton of his shirt, drawing him closer with surprising ease for someone his size. Sherlock moved forward unwillingly, and then there was the soft, insistent pressure of Moriarty’s lips against his own. The brain he never seemed able to quiet went blissfully silent, and, craving the sensation, his arm wrapped around Moriarty’s narrow back, his palm finding its place between his shoulder blades.

 

They stayed locked like this for some amount of time. Sherlock wasn’t sure how long. It could have been only a few seconds; it could have been decades. Eventually they parted, Moriarty’s taste (spearmint and tobacco, he knew now) still on his lips.

 

“Care to learn more?” Moriarty murmured into the crook of his neck. He shivered as he felt the wet insistence of what could only be a tongue trailing his carotid.

 

“M..” Sherlock was going to say, unsure of whether it was a meaningless sound in response to the path his tongue was tracing or whether it was the beginnings of his name.

 

Regardless, he was interrupted by the grin he felt against the thin skin of his throat. “Just Jim’s probably fine now, don’t you think?”

 

Sherlock leaned his head back and nodded once, at the request, at the sensation, in acknowledgement that this was indeed seeming more and more like the real thrill to be had.

 

“Yes,” he said, voice beginning to strain a little. “ _Jim._ ”

 

_________

 

When he rolled over the next morning in his bed, at the end of a trail of his own clothes, Sherlock sat up and noticed that the other half of that trail--Jim’s clothes--were decidedly missing. He stared out through the open door and listened briefly to detect any sounds of movement elsewhere in the flat, but heard no evidence of anyone besides himself. Jim was gone. And being the end of the term, even if Sherlock did wind up in the same course over, Jim wouldn’t be back, his master’s was done. He’d not found out where Jim lived, where he planned to be after his stint at Cambridge was done, anything at all. Perhaps he’d come back to Sherlock’s flat, though, Sherlock reasoned as he reached for the pack of cigarettes on his nightstand. His hand brushed up against a piece of paper though, and he turned to look, as he reached for it. It was a piece of graph paper, torn from a notebook, with Sherlock’s own name printed on it. He let the note rest on his lap as he finished lighting his cigarette and unfolded it. Under the fold of the note, written in the measured and orderly handwriting that teachers develop, was a sparse and single sentence.

 

_Find me when you’re ready._

 

 

He crumpled up the note and set it to the side carefully, as he finished his cigarette. When he was done, he showered evidence of the previous night’s proceedings away. Emerging from the bathroom, he began dressing. Locating and pulling the white t-shirt he’d been wearing the night before on, he stopped by his armoire and fingered the handle. It felt inexplicably foolish to pick the leather jacket up off the floor, so he let it lay there, and pulled on one of his more presentable shirts, instead.

_________

 

The chlorine was sharp in Sherlock’s nose as he took in the scene. John standing there, face stoic even though he was strapped to enough explosives to easily tear him into bits. It had been a thrilling game, the best, if he was honest, but of course it was, owing to its source. Jim Moriarty had graduated three days later, had never come back to Sherlock’s flat in Cambridge, and melted into Sherlock’s past. It would only be a brief encounter, now savored only when he was sure John was already asleep upstairs and the door to his frequently unused bedroom was snicked shut behind him soundly.  

 

His heart leaped to see his friend now so obviously in danger, and Sherlock tried to tell himself that it was this fact and not the potential to see _him_ again that was responsible for the rushing _zing_ in his veins. He heard the door to the pool swing open.

 

“Holmes,” Jim greeted artificially. Surely they were on first name terms now, after all of that, after all this time. Still, Sherlock closed his eyes briefly and focused on ignoring the pulling twist in the pit of his stomach. He opened them to the same man. Older, yes, but largely the same, and still with a tendency towards suits. _Bespoke, made just for him_. So, some things had changed. “I have to admit, I was starting to think you weren’t ever going to show up. Now, is that a British Army Browning L9A1 in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me?”

 

Sherlock smirked, “Both.”

 


End file.
